Making Job Search Easier by Finding the Great Companies First

Boston-based SyncThink has received their tenth patent in the US, if it holds up to legal challenges from other VR companies exploring similar advances. The patent is related to tracking eye movements in virtual reality headsets, an application which they’ve already put to good medical use and which has the potential to open up many new possibilities in VR technology. Earlier this year SyncThink, founded by Dr. Jamshid Ghajar, MD, PhD, FACS, and President of the Brain Trauma Foundation, gained FDA approval for their EYE-SYNC device. EYE-SYNC is a neuro-technology device which tracks eye movements is order to determine if a sports player has developed a concussion during or after a game. The device tracks the eyes for abnormal movement, which is a hallmark of concussions, and according to the company can return a diagnosis in sixty seconds, and is accurate and reliable. Stanford University’s Sports Medicine program is already using EYE-SYNC to screen athletes during games and determine whether they can return to play, and they believe it could become the diagnostic gold standard for sports-related concussions with every team and organization from high school through the professional level. While sports and military injuries are the primary focus right now, the implications…

So you finally decided to learn how to code so you could become a programmer and still be able to find a job once the robots take over everything else. After all, you can learn how to code online for free, so you didn’t even have to worry about taking out student loans that wouldn’t be paid off for decades. Great! Now, how do you find a job once you’ve honed your skills? Believe it or not, technology has actually made the hiring process harder for companies in most cases, not easier. They put out a job listing and get back a pool of resumes which all look pretty much identical, with the exception that half are unqualified according to their requirements. Then comes the tedious process of interviewing several or dozens of applicants and trying to figure out through divination which one is the right fit. It’s frustrating, maddening. Meanwhile, here you sit. You don’t have a degree from some ivy league school, and you’ve never worked in Silicon Valley. Why even apply, knowing you’ll get filed with the second half – otherwise known as the trash bin? Just when you’re ready to give up hope and go back to…

When Leif Baradoy was helping his brother move he found a drawer full of unused gift cards. This was the inspiration for Giftbit, the company Baradoy would go on to found with Peter Locke. Giftbit offers companies a service where they can send customers digital gift cards with set expiration dates through email, then follow up via email to remind the customers to use the cards before they expire. Because of their business model, the company loses no money if the customer doesn’t respond. “Giftbit customers are able to track, audit, and manage their gift card offers and campaigns down to the recipient level,” Baradoy told GeekWire last fall. The company received venture funding early in 2016 from Founder’s Co-op and Freestyle, and in the time between then and now have identified a need that they have just announced during TechCrunch Disrupt SF that they will fill, the need for a business to be able to create their own digital currency on the fly and in whatever form they want – promo codes, refund credits, or digital gift cards for sale. This new offering can help businesses in a number of ways, but the one that jumps out to me is retaining profits when a customer decides they want…

“What did that sign say?” If you say you’ve never asked a passenger that while driving down a highway, you’re lying. Static billboards and traffic signs are easy to miss, especially when you have to concentrate on the road in traffic. So what’s the answer for advertisers and traffic agencies? One is the digital billboards that change their message every few seconds, but they’re still stationary and only allow for multiple ads in a single sign. Another is using the sides and backs of large trucks as moving billboards. Now we’re getting somewhere, but there are still downsides. Like the fact that painted or printed ads don’t change, so local or regional advertising isn’t very feasible on a truck that travels cross-country or even cross-continent. Digital signage on truck can fix that problem, but they’re hard to see in daylight and can be blinding to drivers at night. Electronic signage company Visionect is solving all of these problems in partnership with Mercedes and Germany’s RoadAds, creating e-ink RoadAd displays for the backs of trucks that are easy to read (because they use four connected e-ink boards to create one 3×5 ad space), mobile (because they’re on the back of over…

In writing about Houzz I find myself referencing the Holodeck from Star Trek way too often, but with good reason – it’s simply the coolest sci-fi idea ever (and it’s coming – you know it is). With that disclaimer out of the way, here I go again. Imagine if you could look around your living room or bedroom and see a blank canvas in place of some things. Get rid of your couch, your chair, your dresser, or whatever you think is need of an upgrade or replacement without having to actually move it. Imagine that you could virtually scroll through image after endless image of other living rooms or bedrooms, spot something in them that strikes your fancy, and then see that particular item in your Holodeck-enabled home. Old couch gone, the new one you saw in a picture sitting in its place. The idea makes the interior decorator in you get really excited. And that is pretty much what the home remodeling platform Houzz is allowing anyone and everyone to do now. Houzz is becoming increasingly popular, with the Android version of their app being voted best app of the year in 2016. 400% sales growth year-over-year from 2015, and…